Evaluating New Google Sites For Work and Fun

Earlier this year, Google launched their new version of their popular website software which is packaged up with their suite of applications known as G Suite. I’m a Google Partner for a range of their product so I rolled up my sleeves and built to community websites along with a website for a micro entrepreneur discover what is possible in the new platform.

I’ve been extremely impressed with the platform and while New Google Sites will need to mature a little before it is a viable solution for most businesses, even at this early stage it’s absolutely perfect for schools, micro-entrepreneurs, community organisations, personal websites, hobbyists and business intranets.

Easy intranets With Google Sites

The really great thing about Google sites is it is of course completely integrated with G Suite which means whatever you upload to Google Drive can be easily and quickly displayed to selected audiences through a multi-device friendly interface that makes sharing ideas, images and documents a cinch! Just like dropbox and cloud sharing services by Apple (iCloud) and Microsoft (OneDrive), you can upload Word documents, presentations and spreadsheets to Google Drive and then share it via a link or email with collaborators. The advantage of New Google sites in conjunction with this cloud-based file sharing is that you can create a new Google site for a specific audience of collaborators (business colleagues as in a staff intranet or a club website by example) and share file on a page with text, images and video to put The files you are sharing in context.

Dealing with Responsive Banners in New Google Sites

New Google sites is completely responsive so this means if you are viewing a website built on the platform on a computer or a tablet or a mobile phone, the website will reform its content to suit the screen size dramatically improving user experience compared to the old Google sites (now called classic Google sites).

This ‘responsiveness’ requires a bit of a rethink on the way that we upload graphics. I initially uploaded the hero banner on the homepage for a soccer club only to have to redesign it later because the text navigation would shift over different parts of the image making the navigation difficult to see..

I’ve since discovered and option to use a solid colour behind the top level navigation. There is a little wheel that appears next to the top left logo placeholder which allows you to set that colour. It also seems to dynamically detect the Primary colours from an uploaded logo and will offer menu background options based on your logo colours which I thought was very interesting.

Google Sites Set to Become The New Standard for SMEs

Google, most assuredly have a talented team working night and day on making new Google sites something quite spectacular and I can easily imagine New Google Sites becoming a real contender as a small to medium enterprise website platform.

Popular inexpensive platforms like WordPress, Wix, Squarespace and Shopify are all very strong platforms but if Google ranks websites built on its own platform in any kind of favourable light as you would expect, it’s going to be a very interesting space to watch in the coming months as the development team add in more functionality.

Your Say…

Do you like the look of New Google Sites? Be sure to watch my video as I explore the functionality and makeover a community website and pop your thoughts, tips or tricks on Google Sites below!

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